MELBOURNE says Jack Viney’s clash with Tom Lynch should be assessed in real time and not frame-by-frame at the AFL appeals tribunal.

Viney was suspended for two weeks for “bumping’’ Lynch, who suffered a broken jaw.

As Melbourne prepared its defence, it found an ally in outgoing AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, who said Viney had been unlucky and the league must decide whether head clash rules had “gone too far”.

Viney will be fighting overwhelming history, which has seen only one of 14 appeals succeed since the new match review process was introduced in 2005.

At Tuesday night’s tribunal hearing, Viney denied trying to bump Lynch, who was being tackled by teammate Alex Georgiou from behind at the time contact was made.

News_Image_File: Tom Lynch lays on the ground with Alex Georgiou after the clash. PIC Sarah Reed.But Viney has appeared to be the victim of a head clash law that was strengthened after North Melbourne’s Lindsay Thomas escaped penalty after concussing Collingwood’s Ben Reid in a bump gone wrong in Round 1 last year.

Demons chief executive Peter Jackson will attend Thursday’s 5pm hearing and said the club would prefer Viney was judged on his real-life actions.

“A spontaneous reaction like Jack had, why are they looking at it in slow-mo, because he wasn’t,” Jackson told the Herald Sun.

“And ask: ‘What else could he have done in real time?’

“Jack didn’t have an alternative because it was just a hair’s-breadth of a decision.

“Sometimes there’s going to be decisions where maybe they could revisit the process and ask what the players’ intent was and judge it in real time.”

News_Rich_Media: Melbourne Demons midfielder Jack Viney says he is disappointed with the AFL Tribunal's decision to suspend him for his bump on Tom Lynch.

The Viney decision has been lashed by coaches, current and past players and got the thumbs down from the Players’ Association.

Demetriou said commentary on the tribunal finding was legitimate.

“I think there is potentially an argument to say in the attempt to address the issue of Lindsay Thomas, that the rule has perhaps gone too far,” Demetriou said yesterday.

“That will be an issue for (football operations boss) Mark Evans and for (new AFL CEO) Gill (McLachlan).”

Demetriou said the tribunal had little room to move “under the way the rule is structured”.

Demons great David Schwarz said the suspension was “player protection gone mad, and at the rate the rules have been modified, we are watching a game develop that we despise”.

“The tribunal expected Jack to pivot on the right foot to avoid contact when the ball was in dispute between him and Tom Lynch. He would’ve needed to move like Rudolf Nureyev to avoid contact,” Schwarz told Sportsmate.

Former Adelaide champion Mark Ricciuto said: “If the Viney incident is not overturned or AFL officials don’t say they will look at this rule immediately then the players should strike.”

News_Rich_Media: AFL champions fear great bumps like this will be consigned to history by the Jack Viney tribunal decision.

AFL Players’ Association president Luke Ball said he hoped common sense would prevail.

“What (Tuesday) night’s case has done has brought a bit of new confusion from a players’ perspective in the sense that ‘are you allowed to brace to protect yourself, because that’s what Jack Viney was doing’,” Ball said.

“I think this case specifically is actually about whether he bumped or not.

“Anyone who has played footy knows that (he could not get out of the way). I don’t think he really chose to bump.

“It would be a poor result if people were so frustrated that they stopped supporting the game, hopefully we won’t get to that situation. That’s certainly a risk that the AFL would not want to take, and the players as well.”

News_Image_File: Melbourne’s Jack Viney with coach Paul Roos and footy manager Josh Mahoney after Viney was suspended for two weeks after being found guilty of rough conduct. Pic: Michael Klein.

Carlton coach Mick Malthouse said he was “confused about people making a statement in a game that has been predominantly a contact sport for over 100 years”.

Former Western Bulldogs captain Matthew Boyd — taking on Viney’s Demons on Saturday night — said he did not know what he would have done in the same circumstances.

“I feel for Jack,” he said yesterday.

“It is getting harder to bump, you’ve got to make the choice — if you can tackle, that is the preferred option and anything to do with the head, I think the AFL has made it pretty clear that it is sacrosanct and you can’t really go near it.”

The 2014 interpretation of the rule dealing with head clashes says: “A player electing to bump will be cited for rough conduct if contact comes via a head clash, and players will be instructed a head clash should be reasonably foreseen when bumping.”

Demetriou said Viney had been unlucky, but did not take the tribunal’s decision to mean

the game was no longer “physical”.

“In relation to this particular rule about head clashes ... I understand that it’s become very complex and it may have led to a situation in this particular case that may be unfortunate,” he said.

“The commentary around is sensible — I’m not critical of any of it because I think people are entitled to have that view.

“I don’t subscribe to the theory that the bump is dead, I don’t subscribe to the theory that the game is not tough … you’ve only got to go and sit on the fence and listen to a game to hear the physicality.”

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